Table 2.

Qualitative results on the perceived effects of viewing psychedelic art and natural scenery with illustrative quotation.

Themes	PAa group	SCb group
Relaxation and peace	“I physically felt very at ease.” (participant 76) “Gradually I was attracted to the dynamic effects of the video and [felt] a bit [of] emotional relaxed.” (participant 60)	“It was relaxing and gave space to take my mind off day to day activities.” (participant 99) “Relaxed. the 5 minutes went by very quickly, it felt like only a couple minutes passed.” (participant 86)
Enjoyment, entertainment, and joy	“There was so much cool stuff to see!!” (participant 5) “I felt entertained finding the patterns of the objects moving around.” (participant 9) “The bright colors made me feel happy and warm. The constant motion made me feel mesmerized.” (participant 30)	“The butterfly made me smile.” (participant 45) “It reminded me how beautiful the natural world is! It made me feel optimistic and happy to be a part of something as wonderful as Earth, and made me want to spend more time relaxing and reflecting on my own thoughts.” (participant 24)
Calming and decompressing effect	“I felt a lot calmer and less stressed while watching the video. I often struggle to calm my anxious thoughts, but I had a lot less negative and anxious thoughts while watching the video. Overall, I thought the video was very calming and stress-reducing, and I’d like to try using similar videos to de-stress in my own time.” (participant 42) “As a former cancer patient with mildly traumatic experiences with sedation that induced distressing psychedelic imagery, I was interested to see how this would impact my physical and emotional state. Soon into the video, persistent thoughts and stresses diminished significantly. I was extremely pleasantly surprised that the imagery throughout the video induced joy, relaxation, and peace.” (participant 11)	“I was a little worried and anxious when I started the experiment due to some personal issues I'm currently facing. I found images of nature and trees to be very soothing.” (participant 84) “I felt less tense watching the video and was able to forget about my stress for a while.” (participant 114)
Sleep-inducing effect	“Feeling hypnotized, a wave of calmness came over me, no intrusive anxious thoughts, my mind didn’t wander, my body felt like it was getting ready to sleep.” (participant 61)	“[It was] really peaceful and made me want to sleep.” (participant 97)
Wandering thoughts	“The video promoted thoughts about the universe, space, galaxies, plants like ferns and the family of vegetables that include cauliflower and broccoli. I also thought about cells, viruses, and other organelles and cell structures such as myosin and actin.” (participant 109)	“There were moments when I would let my mind wander.” (participant 43)
Semitrance states	“The physical state I felt I would describe as in a semi-trance like state.” (participant 109) “My mind became void of external thoughts.” (participant 76)	—c
Physical energization	“The bright colors made me feel warm and the constant motion made me feel energized.” (participant 22)	—
Hyperawareness of bodily states	“I was focused on my breathing, which I could regulate more.” (participant 103)	“Watching the scenes of nature while doing nothing gave me a chance to take deep breathes and just be.” (participant 59) “I became hyper aware of my breathing - and I found myself in a “zone” of sorts, where I realized I had been staring at one spot for a longer time than usual”. (participant 78)
Meditative effect	“The patterns that were more tunnel-like instead of swing-like were my favorite because they made me feel the most grounded and balanced” (participant 30).	—
Nostalgia	—	“I missed my family and hometown.” (participant 13) “Reminded me of home that I miss a lot.” (participant 84)
Neutral experiences	“I didn’t really feel a strong emotional response to it.” (participant 75)	“I don't find much change in my physical and emotional states.” (participant 51)
Negative experiences	“I felt less stressed for a second in the middle of the video where there was a flower-like pattern.” (participant 44) “I feel too much information captured by my eyes.” (participant 80) “A moment of dizzy when arts are in transition.” (participant 81)	“Hard to follow; some of the images were so stressful. Time lapse also more stressful.” (participant 4) “Some clips made me feel some vertigo when the video panned from up high.” (participant 52) “I felt like some clips bored me a little.” (SC participant 64)

^aPA: psychedelic art.

^bSC: scenery control.

^cNot applicable.